DiDi to trial self-driving taxi service with public in Shanghai, China

SELF-DRIVING taxis is the future of mobility — and China’s Didi will race past its competitors if it’s fleet can successfully make a debut on the streets of Shanghai, China this year.

The company has recently received a permit from the Shanghai government to test its fleet of autonomous (self-driving) vehicles and will be deploying 30 different models of L4 autonomous vehicles to provide pilot self-driving taxi services in the Jiading District of Shanghai.

DiDi Founder and CEO Cheng Wei made the announcement at Shanghai’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference, where his company is showcasing self-driving taxi-hailing on a closed track.

“Technology only has worth when it brings value to people’s lives. We believe giving ordinary citizens access to large-scale, shared autonomous fleets is key to achieving our shared goal of safety, efficiency, and sustainability for future cities,” said Cheng.

DiDi will be trialing L4 autonomous vehicles — which means, they’re designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip.

However, given the complex traffic and road conditions in Shanghai, DiDi will begin the program with a mixed dispatching model, which will combine both autonomous vehicles and human-driving vehicles for the duration of the pilot self-driving taxi project.

What DiDi is doing in Shanghai is standard practice for most companies and government agencies trialing robo-taxis.

In Singapore, for example, where the government is trialing self-driving shuttle busses at Sentosa, the fleet will have a driver on-board who can take over if circumstances demand it.

Although the launch of the trial is a phenomenal feat by itself, in order for DiDi to actually get ahead in the market, it will need to scale up and deploy on a wider-scale.

In the US, competitor Waymo launched a self-driving taxi trial in Pheonix, Arizona and Silicon Valley, California — but not much progress has been made in terms of scaling-up the project or making the service available to other parts of the country.

DiDi’s autonomous driving unit was started in 2016 and now has more than 200 specialists leading a comprehensive R&D operation covering a multitude of research areas such as HD mapping, perception, behavior prediction, problem diagnosis, vehicle modifications, connected car, and security, among others.